Democrats may push to shutter war prisons (Gitmo, Abu Ghraib)

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

House Democratic leaders yesterday outlined plans to try to force the Bush administration to close the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, taking aim at two sites that have sparked an international furor over the Bush administration's war policy.

Representative John P. Murtha, the chairman of the powerful Defense Appropriations subcommittee and a close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, said he wants to close both prisons by cutting their funding, "to restore our credibility worldwide." If he succeeds, it would force the administration to find a new location for high-value terrorism suspects.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/01/13/democrats_may_push_to_shutter_war_prisons/

Great news! Democrats deserve this smiley: :yourock:

[Bitwit1234]

1. And the Pentagon wants to black list lawyers have you ever heard

of such an outrageous suggestion. How in the hell can you blacklist a lawyer for defending a client accused of a crime. That would be another direct violation of the constitution.

I think, we as Americans ought to photocopy the constitution and send it to every single republican official in this country. And we should tell them that when they took their oath of office one of the provisions of the oath says you must support and defend the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

Looks like not only do republicans are shredding it all over the place they probably don't know ANY of the provisions.

[aquart]

2. Instead of the ten commandments, why don't we post the constitution?

Everywhere, a section at a time.

[jody]

3. Eliminate funding for keeping anyone in prison who is not given every right protected

either by existing criminal law under our Constitution or the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

I will accept nothing less than that!

[cal04]

4. considering include not extending troop deployments

Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who oversees military funding, said he will propose tying congressional approval of war funds to shutting the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba. Other conditions he said he is considering include not extending troop deployments and giving Soldiers and Marines more time to train between deployments.

http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,122161,00.html

[puebloknot]

5. An irreverant aside!

When I saw the title of your message, I went into rage mode. :banghead: "The dems want to put shutters on the cells to give the prisoners privacy while they're being tortured?!? :wtf: Just shut the damned places down!"

I've recovered. That was a knee-jerk reaction based on my frustration that Dems take far too long to reach...:blush:...oops, I'm about to commit another faux pas!

Over and out! :yoiks:

[Quantess]

6. LOL. That's a funny misunderstanding.

As for your other faux pas, I'm not able to guess it, but that's okay, I don't want to know. :o

[puebloknot]

7. ...I'm not able to guess it...

Are you one of them born again abstainers? Seems like it! :rofl:


(To the OP: I hope you'll forgive my inserting humor into your very serious piece. Sometimes laughter just pays a visit, and right now, I'm happy for the company.)

[crickets]

8. Isn't it a little late for Abu Ghraib? It's no longer ours.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu-Ghraib#Transfer_to_Iraqi_control

On March 9, 2006, the U.S. military decided to close Abu Ghraib prison and transfer prisoners to other jails in Iraq.<6>The prison was reported emptied of prisoners in August 2006.<7> On September 2, 2006, Abu Ghraib was formally handed over to Iraq's government. Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, stated "The Abu Ghraib detention facility was handed over to the Iraqi government." The formal transfer was conducted between Major General Jack Gardner, Commander of Task Force 134, and representatives of the Iraqi Ministry of Justice and the Iraqi army.<8>


Tomgram: Lost in a Bermuda Triangle of Injustice
The Facts on the Ground
Mini-Gulags, Hired Guns, Lobbyists, and a Reality Built on Fear
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=123690

Of course, its prisoners who remained generally uncharged and without access to Iraqi courts, weren't just released to the winds. Quite the opposite, over 3,000 of them were redistributed to two other U.S. prisons, Camp Bucca in Iraq's south and Camp Cropper at the huge U.S. base adjoining Baghdad International Airport, once dedicated to the holding of "high-value" detainees like Saddam Hussein and top officials of his regime.

Camp Cropper itself turns out to be an interesting story, but one with a problem: While the emptying of Abu Ghraib made the news everywhere, the filling of Camp Cropper made no news at all. And yet it turns out that Camp Cropper, which started out as a bunch of tents, has now become a $60 million "state-of-the-art" prison. The upgrade, on the drawing boards since 2004, was just completed and hardly a word has been written about it. We really have no idea what it consists of or what it looks like, even though it's in one of the few places in Iraq that an American reporter could safely visit, being on a vast American military base constructed, like the prison, with taxpayer dollars.
____


New Iraqi prisons have cropped up to fill Abu Ghraib's place, and will continue to do so if no one's paying enough attention. Spending restrictions are a good start. Stop paying contractors like KBR to build these monstrosities! Gad, don't we have better use for our taxes? We could have equipped soldiers with that money. What they really need to do, though, is pass new laws or enforce the old ones that make prisoner abuse illegal.

As for gulag Guantanamo, that crap has been going on far too long from day one, and it's a relief someone's finally addressing the problem. There's a stain on the country's integrity that will never go away. Applause to the dems, I truly hope they succeed in getting it closed--without allowing another to take its place elsewhere.

Good luck on that given how the CIA loves their prisons so, and given how much money is involved, for Agency as well as the contractors. Tom Engelhardt's assessment is very grim.


edit: added last paragraph

[dailykoff]

9. How about breaking the CIA into a thousand pieces

and scattering them to the winds, like JFK proposed doing 45 years ago?

p.s. better yet d how about burning them and then burying their ashes in a concrete bunker five miles beneath the sea?

[crickets]

10. Kick nt